Tuesday, 8 April 2014

Nach Deutschland...

It has been a little while.
And whilst, in many respects, it would be unreasonable to complain about the
music on offer in London, we hardly do well for Wagner. Or indeed for Mozart. More to the point, it will be good to have
a change of scenery. I shall have one more London concert this week: the London
Philharmonic Orchestra with Renaud Capuçon and Jukka-Pekka Saraste (Schumann’s
Violin Concerto and Bruckner’s Eighth Symphony). After that will come a visit
to Berlin, Dresden, Leipzig, and back to Berlin, with an embarrassment of
musical riches: indeed, a performance every day. Here, then, is the programme to come:

Berlin

11th - Vienna
Philharmonic Orchestra/Daniel Barenboim: Mozart's Symphonies nos 39-41. (Barenboim
and Riccardo Muti are probably the only conductors alive I can imagine wishing
to hear in such a programme: very exciting indeed!)

13th – Die Zauberflöte at the Komische Oper.
Kristiina Poska (new to me) conducts a production from Suzanne Andrade and
Barrie Kosky.

Dresden

14th – Palm Sunday
Concert. (Well, the repeat thereof, but it is still described as such.) Not
Wagner conducting Beethoven’s Ninth, alas, but even I have some degree of
realism. This, however, offers a true rarity: Telemann’s Trauermusik für August den Starken, thus a work with an older
Dresden history. The Dresdner Kammerchor, Staatskapelle Dresden, a cast
including Simone Kermes (whom I have yet to hear in concert), and Reinhard
Goebel perform.

16th – Radu Lupu:
only the second time I shall have heard him ‘live’, and the first time in
recital. Schumann’s Kinderszenen and
a selection from the Bunte Blätter
precede Schubert’s late A major sonata, D 959.

Leipzig

17th – Bach’s St Matthew Passion at the Thomaskirche
(!) with the Thomanerchor and the Gewandhaus Orchestra under Michael Gläser. I
have heard the St John Passion in its
home church twice, but never the St
Matthew.

18th – Parsifal: Bach has been pushed back to
Maundy Thursday to allow me to hear both the Passion and a Karfreitag
performance of Wagner’s Bühnenweihfestspiel.
Ulf Schirmer conducts Roland Aeschlimann’s production (on which I have written
more than once before).

20th – Die Feen: Renaud Doucet’s production was
one of the revelations of Wagner-year. I am delighted to be seeing it again.
Matthias Foremny will on this occasion conduct and there are a few new names in
the cast too.

Berlin

21st – Parsifal (bis): it is a little while
since I have visited the Deutsche Oper, and shall take this opportunity to see
Philipp Stölzl’s production, new last year. Axel Kober conducts a cast headed
by Stefan Vinke, Evelyn Herlitzius, Bo Skovhus, and Hans-Peter König.

22nd – Le Vin herbé: finally, a rare chance not
only to hear Frank Martin’s oratorio, but to see it staged, by Katie Mitchell at the Staatsoper. Franck Ollu conducts.